mms  UNIVEKIIY  OF  CALIFORNIA? 


JOHN  HENRf  NASH  LIBRARY 

^  SAN  FRANCISCO  <» 

PRESENTED  TO  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

ROBERT  GORDON  SPROUL,  PRESIDENT. 

Mr.andMrs.MILTON  S. RAY- 
CECILY,  VIRGINIA  and  ROSALYN  RAY 

AND  THE 

RAY  OIL  BURNERCDMPANY 


SAN  FRANCISCO 
NEV7YORK 


The  American  Institute  of  Graphic  Arts 
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SENTING AS  THE  SIXTH  ITEM  IN  THE  SERIES  OF  KEEPSAKES, 
FREDERIC  W.  GOUDy's  PHANTASY,  "THE  CITY  OF  CRAFTS," 
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JANUARY   1923 


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THE 

CITY  OF  CRAFTS 

A  Phantasy 

BEING   SOME   ACCOUNT 
OF   A   JOURNEY   TO    THE    COURT   OF    THE 

PRINTERS'   GUILD 

Told  by 

A  member  of  the  American  Institute 
OF  Graphic  Arts  of  what  he  saw  and 
heard  there,  and  the  printers  he  talked 
with ;  illustrated  by  pictures  with  a  lan- 
tern at  a  meeting  of  the  Institute  on  the 
eveningofWednesday5Februaryi55i922 


New  York 

American  Institute  of  Graphic  Arts 

1922 


:A(bte 


In  the  summer  of  1921,  while  in  London,  the  writer 
of  the  "City  of  Crafts"  one  day,  while  sauntering 
down  Charing  Cross  Road,  chanced  to  see  in  the 
window  of  one  of  the  many  book-sellers  in  that 
street,  a  little  pamphlet — "The  Court  of  the 
Printers'  Guild,"  written  by  W.  Loftus  Hare  and 
decorated  by  the  late  Lovat  Fraser. 

The  pamphlet  had  been  issued  some  seven  or 
eight  years  ago,  primarily  to  advertise  the  Cran- 
ford  Press,  which  is  the  trade  name  of  George  Pul- 
man  &?  Sons,  a  firm  of  London  printers,  but  the 
decorations  by  Fraser,  whose  untimely  death  is  so 
generally  deplored,  soon  made  it  sought  for,  and 
copies  are  not  now  easy  to  come  upon.  Issued  origin- 
ally at  a  shilling,  the  present  writer  paid  "seven  and 
six"  for  his  copy,  and  glad  to  get  it  at  that. 

While  reading  the  pamphlet,  it  occurred  to  the 
writer  that  it  might  be  made  the  basis  for  an  eve- 
ning's entertainment  for  The  American  Institute  of 
Graphic  Arts,  of  which  he  was  President,  thinking 
then  only  to  use  Mr.  Hare's  text  and  add  slides  of 
pages  from  the  works  of  the  old  printers  mentioned. 
But  on  attempting  to  employ  the  text  for  the  pro- 
posed use,  it  was  found  that  some  of  it  was  too 
closely  linked  up  with  the  work  of  the  printers  issu- 
ing the  pamphlet  to  make  the  adaptation  satis- 
factory; it  seemed  advisable,  then,  to  disregard 


some  of  his  text,  reconstruct  the  whole  and  add 
something  more  suited  to  the  purpose  intended. 

Mr.  Clarence  White  kindly  consented  to  make 
slides  for  use  that  evening  from  pages  supplied  by 
the  writer;  Mr.  William  E.  Rudge  arranged  to  print 
the  whole,  from  letters  cast  and  composed  by  the 
machine  whose  work  deWorde  objected  to,  in  order 
that  those  present  might  have  something  tangible 
to  carry  away  with  them,  other  copies  to  be  sent 
to  members  of  the  Institute  not  able  to  be  present 
on  that  occasion,  and  possibly  a  few  at  a  nominal 
charge  for  those  interested.  The  receipts  therefrom 
are  to  defray  expenses  of  other  efforts  for  entertain- 
ment and  instruction  of  the  membership. 

Intended  only  as  an  evening^s  entertainment,  it 
is  hoped  that  failure  to  include  the  names  and  work 
of  many  notable  printers  will  not  be  criticized,  nor 
what  is  said  of  those  there  mentioned  taken  too 
seriously.  It  can  readily  be  understood  that  the 
references  to  the  present-day  printers — ^members 
of  the  Institute,  and  friends  of  the  writer — are  in- 
tended to  be  good-natured  fun  only.  If  perchance 
anything  has  been  said  that  invites  criticism,  it  is 
due  merely  to  the  heavy  hand  of  the  writer  and 
should  not  be  taken  too  literally;  nor  are  invidious 
comparisons  intended'or  expected. 

FOREST   HILLS    GARDENS 
JANUARY  30,  1922 


THE  CITY  OF  CRAFTS 


Long  way  from  here,  in 
the  Printers'  Paradise,  lies  the 
City  of  Crafts,  a  city  peopled 
only  by  workers  in  the  art 
preservative  of  all  arts,  and 
toward  which  place  journey 
all  who  excel  in  good  work. 
Tonight  we  are  to  hear  news 
from  there,  of  famous  men  long  since  gone  and  what 
they  do,  news  from  the  City  of  Crafts  and  the  Print- 
Court  established  there.  Excepting  now  and 


ers 


then  only,  none  leave  that  place;  but  recently  one 
from  the  Court,  anxious  for  greater  news  than  ordi- 
narily comes  to  them,  found  his  way  among  us  and 
I  met  with  him.  He  told  me  that  the  great  printers 
of  the  past  are  to  be  found  in  that  City,  and  that  their 
chief  occupation  is  recounting  among  themselves  the 
difficulties,  and  pleasures  too,  incident  to  the  begin- 
nings of  typography ;  and  while  few  leave  them,news 
of  what  is  going  on  in  the  world  above  reaches  the 
members  of  the  Court,  who  pass  judgment  and  enter 
in  a  large  Book  kept  in  the  great  Printers'  Hall  the 
names  of  those  of  the  upper  world  found  worthy  of 
the  honor.  All  the  things  he  told  me  and  the  things 
he  shewed  me,  gave  me  joy  and  made  me  wish  to  go 
with  him  when  again  he  went  back  to  that  City. 
Later  I  did  go  with  him,  and  tonight  I  am  to  tell 
you  what  I  found  there. 


First,  while  the  members  of  the  Court  were  gather- 
ing, was  I  allowed  to  look  at  the  Book  kept  in  the 
great  Hall  in  which  are  written  many  names — not, 
indeed,  every  printer's  name,  but  only  those  who 
had  been  judged  and  found  worthy  of  the  honor. 
As  often  as  one  among  the  earthly  craftsmen  is 
found  to  excel  above  others  the  Court  is  convened, 
but  talk  of  printing  and  its  wondrous  improve- 
ments since  their  day,  goes  on  all  days. 

The  Governor  of  the  Court  is  one  Arnold  Pan- 
nartz,  the  partner  of  Conrad  Sweynheim.  These 
two  disciples  of  Fust,  while  on  their  way  to  Rome, 
stopped  at  the  Monastery  of  St.  Scholastica  and 
printed  four  books  there  for  the  Abbot.  I  heard  them 
laughing  as  they  talked  together  of  the  terror  they 
were  in  when  surprised  by  the  monk  Clement,  who 
was  on  his  way  to  obey  the  Pope's  summons  to 
teach  at  the  University  of  Basle.  It  seems  Clement 
one  Sunday  morning  had  preached  at  a  small  Italian 
town  and  afterward  continued  his  way  on  foot.  He 
came  upon  two  tired  craftsmen  resting  in  the  deep 
shade  of  a  great  chestnut  tree ;  near  them  was  a 
little  cart  and  in  it  a  printing  press,  rude  and  clumsy. 
How  Clement  knew  them  to  call  their  names  when 
he  never  before  had  seen  them  nor  they  him,  they 
could  not  understand."My  children,*'  said  Clement, 
"I  saw  a  *Lactantius'  in  Rome,  printed  by  Sweyn- 
heim and  Pannartz,  disciples  of  Fust.  By  your 
blue  eyes  and  flaxen  hair  I  wist  ye  were  Germans. 
Who  then  should  ye  be  but  Fust's  disciples?"  And 
they  took  the  press  out  of  the  cart  and  presently 
printed  a  quarto  sheet  of  eight  pages  for  which  the 


types  already  were  set  up.  "What,"  said  Clement, 
"are  these  words  really  fast  upon  the  paper  ?  Will 
they  not  disappear  as  quickly  as  they  came  ?  Why, 
'tis  Augustine's  *De  Civitate  Dei'  itself!  My  sons, 
you  carry  here  the  very  wings  of  knowledge !" 

The  Councillors  of  the  Governor,  too,  bore  famous 
names,  and  came  to  the  Court  from  many  lands. 
One,  I  was  told,  was  named  Waldfogel,  of  Avignon 
in  France,  who  claimed  to  be  the  inventor  of  print- 
ing; and  indeed,  many  in  France  today  think  so 
too,  from  certain  documents  found  in  the  legal  ar- 
chives of  Avignon,  but  no  books  to  substantiate  his 
claims  by  direct  evidence.  Another  who  wished  to 
be  thought  the  first  to  print  was  Laurens  Coster  of 
Haarlem,  but  few  gave  heed  to  him,  as  scholars  dis- 
pute his  claims  to  be  the  first  who  "shortened  the 
labor  of  copyists  by  the  device  of  movable  types  . .  . 
disbanding  hired  armies  and  cashiering  most  kings 
and  senates  and  creating  a  whole  new  democratic 
world."  Among  the  company  were  two  Germans, 
Fust  and  his  son-in-law  Peter  SchoefFer,  who  sat  by 
and  scowled  sourly  at  Johan  Gutenberg,  who  nearly 
five  hundred  years  ago  had  left  Mayence  with 
them.  Gutenberg  is  generally  credited  with  the 
actual  application  of  the  first  use  of  movable  metal 
types.  Coster's  name  is  not  attached  to  any  books 
he  is  said  to  have  printed,  but  neither  do  the  works 
of  Gutenberg  bear  his  name.  "Why,"  said  Guten- 
berg, "Fust  goes  so  far  as  to  print  at  the  end  of  one 
of  his  books :  'this  present  work,  with  all  its  embel- 
lishments was  done,  not  with  pen  and  ink,  but  by 
a  new  invented  art  of  casting  letters,  printing,  by 


me  Johan  Fust  and  my  son-in-law,  Peter  Schoeffer, 
in  the  famous  city  of  Mentz  upon  the  Rhine/  "  He 
continued,  "I  know  they  helped  me  and  lent  me 
money,  but  why  need  they  try  to  steal  the  glory 
that  belongs  only  to  me  ?  I  hear,  too,  that  the  ex- 
cellent 'Dictionnaire  Universelle,'  in  which  no  one 
would  expect  to  find  any  mistake  whatever,  says 
that  John  Fust,  Burgomaster  of  Mayence,  mater- 
nal uncle  of  John  SchoeflFer,  invented  the  art  of 
printing  with  brass  types." 

Hearing  his  recital  of  this  garbled  passage,  I  was 
reminded  of  the  itinerant  preacher  who  mingled 
and  misplaced  his  quotations  from  the  Scriptures 
in  a  similar  manner,  and  astonished  greatly  his  con- 
gregation by  exclaiming,  "And  Moses,  after  he  had 
been  forty  days  and  forty  nights  in  the  whale's 
belly,  said  on  emerging,  'Verily,  almost  thou  per- 
suadest  me  to  become  a  Christian  !*  *' 

Asking  one  near  me — I  think  it  wasWilliam  Caxton 
— ^who  else  was  there  present,  he  pointed  out  to  me 
Mentelen  of  Strasburg  and  Zainer  of  Ulm  and 
Zel  from  Cologne.  Zel  in  his  early  days  was  a  scribe, 
but  took  up  the  new  art  soon  after  Gutenberg  and 
Fust  had  made  their  Latin  Bibles  here.  Master 
Zainer  was  in  an  ill  mood  because,  he  said,  Heinrich 
Knoblochtzer  had  copied  his  Vita  Aesopi  cum 
Fabulis^  claiming  he  had  given  no  one  any  right  to 
copy  his  work.  And  Arnold  Hoernen  was  there  too, 
he  the  first  to  put  numbers  on  his  printed  pages. 
Zainer,  in  turn,  was  taken  to  task  by  the  Augsburg 
wood-cutters  because  he  made  pictures  for  his 
printed  books,  they  claiming  their  Charter  gave 


them  alone  the  right  to  cut  blocks;  but  on  going  be- 
fore the  Abbot  with  the  matter,  that  wise  man 
judged  that  Master  Zainer  might  do  as  he  pleased 
if  he  used  the  work  of  the  wood-cutters'guild  alone. 
It  was  at  that  time  that  the  wood-cutters  of  Nurem- 
berg made  block  books  without  the  use  of  metal 
types;  some  had  no  presses  but  laid  the  paper  on 
the  inked  blocks  and  rubbed  it  down.  They  sold 
books  to  the  people,  as  the  text  was  in  the  vulgar 
tongue  and  the  learned  despised  any  not  in  Latin. 
I  saw  one  book  called  Mirabilia  Romae — showing 
the  marvels  of  Rome  and  written  in  the  German 
tongue,  and  containing  nearly  two  hundred  pages, 
all  cut  on  wooden  blocks.  No  one  knew  the  name  of 
the  printer  of  this  book  to  tell  me,  although  some 
said  it  had  been  done  by  Ulrich  Hahn.  Giovanni 
Vavassore,  who  lived  at  Venice,  and  the  last  to 
print  block  books,  when  I  told  him  that  since  his 
day  printers  made  casts  in  metal  from  their  type 
forms  and  could  print  more  books  in  a  week  than 
he  could  in  a  year,  turned  away,  not  believing  that 
such  things  could  be  true.  Yet  I  could  hardly  expect 
one  who  had  printed  block  books  many  years  after 
the  invention  of  moving  types  to  believe  me,  so 
slow-witted  was  he. 

The  Governor  called  the  Court  to  order  and,  hap- 
pily, I  was  allowed  to  remain  through  the  session. 
The  Clerk  of  the  Court  read  the  names  of  those 
present,  who  all  gave  answer  when  their  names  were 
called. 

From  Venice  came  Joannes  de  Spira,  and  he 
brought  with  him  his  Cicero — Epistolae  ad  Fami- 


Hares y  which  he  printed  in  1469  and  was,  he  main- 
tained, the  first  book  printed  there.  Nicolas  Jenson, 
who  had  been  sent  by  his  lord,  Charles  VII,  from 
the  mint  at  Tours  to  Mayence  to  spy  out  the  new 
art  of  printing  of  which  he  had  heard  marvels  re- 
ported, the  king  having  learned  that  Messire 
Guthenberg  was  making  letters  there  with  a  punch. 
Some  even  think  that  Jenson  may  have  obtained 
work  as  engraver  of  metal  punches  in  the  atelier  of 
Gutenberg,  and  even  learned  the  art  of  printing 
there.  When  Jenson  returned  to  Paris  he  found  his 
patron  Charles  dead  and  Louis  XI  on  the  throne. 
Louis  had  not  the  same  interests  as  his  father.  Jen- 
son, no  doubt  disgusted  with  the  indifference  with 
which  he  was  received  by  Louis,  decided  to  carry 
his  new-found  art  elswhere.  He  soon  found  his  way 
to  Venice,  where  he  joined  his  art  of  engraving  to 
that  of  printing,  making  his  first  book  a  year  after 
de  Spirals,  but  on  the  finest  fount  of  letters  ever 
cast,  more  perfect  in  form  than  those  of  any  pre- 
vious printer  and  the  direct  parent  of  the  Roman 
letters  in  general  use  today. 

With  Jenson  came  Aldus  Manutius,  bringing  his 
Virgilius  set  up  in  a  type  which,  he  said,  was  copied 
from  the  handwriting  of  the  great  Petrarch.  And 
Gerard  Leeu  of  Antwerp,  and  Jacob  Bellaert  from 
Haarlem,  and  Colard  Mansion,  who  had  been  a  cal- 
ligrapher,  but  who  later  printed  with  types  cut 
after  his  own  writing,  a  style  he  passed  on  to 
William  Caxton,  the  Englishman  who,  it  is  said, 
learned  the  art  of  printing  from  Mansion  while 
Caxton  was  living  at  Bruges.  Caxton  had  with  him 


his  assistants,  Wynkyn  de  Worde  and  Richard 
Pynson.  De  Worde  seemed  not  to  care  for  the  com- 
pany he  found  himself  in,  deeming  it  too  slow. 

As  I  looked  about  on  the  company  assembled,  I 
recognized  Christopher  Plantin  of  Antwerp  from 
the  painting  of  him  I  had  seen  at  the  museum  in 
that  city,  and  I  spoke  to  him.  He  showed  still  the 
effects  of  the  dagger  thrust  that  a  ruffian  had  in- 
flicted on  him,  having  mistaken  Plantin  for  another. 
Plantin,  unlike  Gutenberg,  did  not  sink  under  mis- 
fortunes. He  told  me  how  "nine  times  did  he  have 
to  pay  ransom  to  save  his  property;"  in  spite  there- 
of, in  the  ruins  of  a  sacked  city,  surrounded  by  sav- 
age soldiers,  discouraged  with  a  faithless  king  who 
would  neither  protect  his  property  nor  discharge  his 
just  debts,  ill  at  ease  with  clamoring  creditors,  con- 
tinued yet  his  work.  What  a  lesson  that  we  too 
might  learn! 

Antwerp  was  but  the  city  of  his  adoption;  he  was 
born  in  France.  Stephens  of  Paris,  weary  of  endless 
quarrels  with  meddlesome  ecclesiastics,  fled  to 
Geneva;  so  Plantin,  to  escape  the  fate  of  Stephen 
Dolet,  who  was  burned  at  the  stake,  was  forced 
to  forsake  Paris  for  Antwerp.  Reading  the  signs  of 
the  times,  forewarnings  of  the  coming  massacre  of 
St.  Bartholomew  were  already  plain  to  him. 

He  showed  me  his  best  work,  of  which  he  was 
proud  and  justly  so — the  ''Royal  Polyglot^'  a  mag- 
nificent achievement  in  spite  of  its  115  errors  of 
paging  in  eight  folio  volumes.  The  printing  of  it 
was  good,  but  not  of  the  highest  rank.  But  Plan  tin's 
purposes  were  always  beyond  his  rivals ;  he  did  not 


pander  to  low  appetites,  his  aims  were  always  high 
and  his  taste  severe,  points  that  are  of  greater  ac- 
count than  faultless  technique. 

And  I  saw  also  William  Morris  and  Theodore 
DeVinne  talking  together — strange  looking  in  their 
modern  dress  among  the  costumes  of  long  ago.  I 
wanted  to  speak  to  Morris  but  did  not  dare ;  yet  draw- 
ing as  near  to  him  as  I  could,  I  overheard  DeVinne 
tell  him  that  he  was  a  "dreamer  of  dreams,  born  out 
of  his  due  time" — and  how  with  the  same  kind  of 
presses,  etc.,  Morris  had  gone  the  early  printers  one 
better.  If  time  had  permitted, he  said,  his  Chronicles 
of  Froissart  would  have  outrivalled  any  piece  of 
printing  ever  attempted,  so  sumptuous  with  borders, 
initials  and  wood-cut  illustrations ;  it  would  have  sur- 
passed even  the  Chaucer  he  did  finish. 

Master  Pannartz,  the  Governor  of  the  Court,  then 
spoke  to  the  members  of  the  Guild,  saying,  it  had 
come  to  his  ears  that  Master  William  Rudge,  a 
printer  in  the  United  States  of  America,was  worthy 
of  having  his  name  written  in  the  great  Book  as 
one  excelling  in  his  work.  Many  there  were  present 
who  spoke  up  for  him.  Antoine  Verard  of  Paris 
declared  that  although  he  himself  had  printed  more 
than  three  hundred  books  and  had  even  employed 
three  other  master  printers  in  Paris  to  help  him, 
yet  would  he  have  liked  to  have  had  help  also  from 
this  Master  Rudge.  Gutenberg  said  that  his  own 
work  would  have  been  as  good  as  that  of  Rudge 
had  not  Fust  and  his  son-in-law,  Peter  SchoeiFer, 
dunned  him  so  hard  for  the  loan  he  had  of  them. 
However,  he  did  not  object  to  entering  Rudge's 


name  in  the  book,  but  Wynkyn  de  Worde  spoke 
up — said  he:  "It  is  no  long  time  since  I  came 
with  William  Caxton  from  Bruges  [It  be  over  four 
hundred  years,  said  the  Clerk  of  the  Court  in  an 
undertone]  and  set  me  down  in  Westminster  where 
I  printed  over  six  hundred  books  that  still  live. 
For  me,  I  see  no  good  in  the  new-fangled  printing 
of  this  Master  Rudge,  and  I  hear  too,  he  sets  up  the 
letters  he  prints  from  with  a  machine  that  is  made 
in  the  City  of  Brotherly  Love.  How  else  can  work 
be  but  bad  when  so  quickly  done?'' 

Theodoric  Rood,  who  came  from  Cologne  and 
joined  for  a  press  at  Oxford  with  Thomas  Hunt 
— ^well-known  as  an  Oxford  University  stationer 
since  1473 — turned  sour  because  of  such  great  learn- 
ing all  about  him,  cursed  the  day  his  press  was  set 
up.  He  said  he  could  see  no  good  in  any  printing 
done  in  a  land  of  which  he  had  never  so  much  as 
heard;  whereat  Joannes  Paulus  Brissensius,a  native 
of  Brescia  in  Italy,  said  that  he  had  printed  in  Mex- 
ico, in  America,  in  1 549,  and  resen  ted  Rood 's  slurring 
remarks.  Printing,  he  said,  was  not  to  be  judged  by 
the  place  where  it  was  done,  nor  by  whom,  but  by 
its  excellence;  moreover,he  continued,  "who  fault- 
eth  not,  liveth  not;  who  mendeth  faults  is  com- 
mended: The  Printer  hath  faulted  a  little:  it  may  be 
the  authors  oversighted  more."  For  his  part  he 
thought  much  printing  was  being  done  in  that 
same  America,  that  for  excellence  even  rivalled  the 
work  of  his  companions  whose  names  had  been  en- 
rolled in  the  Book  without  question. 

Others  of  the  company  did  not  agree  with  de 


Worde  and  Rood,  the  foremost  among  them,  Geo- 
froy  Tory,  who  printed  for  Francis  I,  rated  him 
roundly,  saying  he  was  "out  of  date  and  a  back- 
number,  forsooth,"  he  went  on," this  Master  Rudge 
has  associated  with  him  a  typographer  named 
Bruce  Rogers,  a  typographer  such  as  never  before 
known,  and  with  his  help  Master  Rudge  achieves 
as  correct  a  style  and  charms  the  eye  as  effectively 
and  captivates  the  fancy  as  truly  as  ever  I  was  able 
— and  very  like,  too."  And  some  of  the  company 
asked,  "why  not  use  a  machine  to  set  the  types,  if 
it  does  them  well  ?  Were  not  our  presses  machines  ? 
Would  we  had  had  such  wonderful  aids."  And  "be- 
sides," some  one  was  heard  to  say,  "the  machine  he 
uses  is  made  by  a  company  of  workmen  that  em- 
ploys an  artist  to  design  types  for  it — ^why  not  put 
his  name  also  in  the  Book?"  And  I  was  confused 
and  could  say  naught,  only  glad  that  ever  I  was 
thought  worthy  of  so  great  honor,  deeming  my 
handicraft  but  every-day  commonplace  work. 

And  then  there  was  talk  of  how  Master  Munder, 
of  the  city  of  Baltimore,  was  printing  in  colors  so  well 
that  many  knew  not  that  it  was  printing.  One,  I  am 
not  sure  whether  it  was  Ratdolt  of  Augsburg  or  Jean 
du  Pre  of  Paris,  told  the  Court  that  some  of  the 
pictures  printed  by  Master  Munder  were  so  like 
paintings  he  dared  not  say  how  Hke ;  but  Anton 
Koburger  of  Nuremberg  was  sour — for  himself,  he 
said,  he  "could  see  little  need  for  a  picture  on  a 
printed  page  to  be  like  the  thing  itself."  Whereat 
William  Caxton  laughed  and  was  heard  to  mutter, 
"That  can  we  well  understand,sincein  thy  Chronicle^ 


to  print  the  likenesses  of  two  hundred  kings  you 
used  no  more  than  forty  wood-cutSjand  for  well-nigh 
as  many  Popes,  less  than  that  many  blocks."  In 
this  same  Chronicle  that  Caxton  refers  to,  many 
cities  are  shown,  all  printed  from  the  same  block — 
Nineveh  or  Babylon  or  Troy,  it  mattered  not. 
Amid  the  laughter  Master  Koburger  hurried  away 
abashed. 

This  talk  of  printing  in  colors  caught  the  ears  of 
Fust  and  Schoeffer  who  were  quick  to  maintain 
that  they  were  the  first  to  use  red  and  blue  initials 
in  their  Psalter.  Whereon  Erhard  Ratdolt,  with 
some  heat,  claimed  he  had  printed  with  colors,  and 
moreover,  he  was  indeed  the  first  to  print  in  gold. 

And  all  the  time  this  talk  was  going  on  there  were 
being  shewn  sheets  printed  by  Master  Marchbanks, 
to  whom  merchants  have  recourse  for  lists  of  their 
choicest  wares,  and  the  members  of  the  guild  mar- 
veled that  almost  the  things  themselves  appeared 
on  his  pages,  so  like  were  they  printed.  Gunther 
Zainer*s  wood-cutters  could  not  understand  what 
I  told  them  of  the  work  of  the  photo-engravers  that 
Marchbanks  employed.  Nicolas  Jenson  was  amazed 
at  the  types  Marchbanks  printed  on,  more  sharp 
and  clear-cut  than  the  "white-letter"  he  himself 
had  printed  from,  whereat  I  was  covered  with  con- 
fusion and  would  have  hidden  myself  if  it  were 
possible,  since  it  was  of  my  own  handiwork  that  he 
was  speaking. 

The  names  of  Rudge,  Munder,  and  Marchbanks 
were  ordered  set  down  in  the  book  by  the  Court, 
but,  the  hour  growing  late,  he  announced  that  dis- 


cussion  of  the  qualifications  of  Masters  Grabhorn, 
and  Taylor  and  Taylor,  and  D.  Berkeley  Updike, 
and  Everett  Currier  and  William  Kittredge  and 
others  would  come  up  at  the  next  convening  of  the 
Court  though  many  there  were  present  ready  to 
vouch  for  them. 

Then  the  Governor  took  a  great  pen  and  entered 
the  names  of  these  printers  in  the  Book.  After  that 
we  all  fell  to  eating  and  drinking,  moderately  but 
most  joyfully,  as  all  craftsmen  should  after  a  good 
day's  work.  And  as  they  ate,  good  humor  returned 
— even  Wynkyn  deWorde  joined  in  the  feast  and 
wished  to  recall  the  ill  words  he  had  said,  and  Rood 
too,  was  sorry  that  he  had  vented  his  spleen  in  that 
company. 

I  resolved  then  that  I  would  return  and  tell  the 
members  of  the  American  Institute  and  its  friends 
all  I  had  seen  and  heard,  and  I  have,  but  I  could 
not  save  with  the  help  of  Clarence  White  the  pho- 
tographer, Rudge  the  printer,  and  the  Directors  who 
gave  me  leave  to  use  this  place  to  tell  and  show  you 
what  I  saw  in  the  City  of  Crafts. 

F.  W.  G. 


With  apologies  and  thanks  to  Messrs.  George 
Pulman  &  Sons  of  London,  whose  pamphlet.  The 
Court  of  the  'Printers*  Guild,  suggested  the  fore- 
going account  of  my  journey  to  the  City  of  Crafts. 
Printed  February,  1 9  2  2 , by  William  Edwin  Rudge, 
Bradford  Road,  Mount  Vernon,  New  York. 

•?? 
Decorations  by  George  Illian 


2J3 


